1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a recording apparatus, and more particularly to an ink jet recording apparatus for executing recording by discharging ink onto a recording medium. More specifically, the present invention relates to a mounting-removing mechanism of an ink cartridge containing ink to be supplied to an ink jet recording head.
2. Description of the Related Art
An mounting-removing mechanism for mounting and removing an ink cartridge to and from a main body of an ink jet recording apparatus is discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2008-110577.
According to the technique discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2008-110577, the mounting-removing mechanism includes an operation lever, and a latching member provided on one end of the operation lever. An ink cartridge mounted on a cartridge mounting portion (hereinafter, simply referred to as “mounting portion”) of the recording apparatus main body is latched by the latching member. Further, the operation lever is supported rotatably at the central portion thereof, and a user can release the engagement (latch) between the latching member and the ink cartridge to take out the ink cartridge from the mounting portion by operating (rotating) the operation lever.
According to the technique discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2008-110577, there remains a problem in which the operation lever is erroneously operated (i.e., erroneous operation) because of the carelessness of a user. In order to prevent the operation lever from being operated erroneously, a regulation member for further regulating the latched state of the latching member may be provided on the mounting-removing mechanism.
In other words, if the latched state of the latching member is regulated to “non-releasable” or “releasable” by the regulation member, the latched state of the latching member can be prevented from being released carelessly.
However, even if the regulation member is provided thereon, once the latched state of the latching member is switched to the releasable state by the regulation member, the latching member cannot automatically return to the non-releasable state from the releasable state unless the user operates the regulation member again.
Therefore, once the latched state of the latching member is switched to the releasable state by the regulation member, the latching member cannot easily return to the non-releasable state again, and thus the regulation member may not be able to operate the regulation function.